TROY OUNCE

From The Southern Tip of Africa: A Collection of Great Essays, My Critical Take on the Financial Crisis, Forecasts, Precious Metals, Economics, Main and Wall Street and Anything Else That Could Assist in Trying To Understand Our New World of Economic, Political and Social Uncertainty.
(And in case you are looking for information on "troy ounce", yes, precious metals like gold, silver and platinum, are being weighed in troy ounce which is 31.1035 gram)

With gold more than $250 off its August 2011 peak, today's chart provides some long-term perspective in regards to the gold market. Today's chart provides an illustration of the bull market in gold that began back in 2001. As today's chart illustrates, the pace of the 11-year bull market has increased over time. However, over the past seven months the price of an ounce of the shiny metal has declined more than at any point since 2008. This latest pullback has brought gold down to support (green line) for a second test of its three-year accelerated trend channel. So while the upward trend in gold is still intact, the accelerated trend is once again being tested.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The money does not exists, it's not there but mysteriously 20 of the richest countries in the world have the confidence to talk about a fund of 2 trillion US$. If they are going to spend that kind of money it must physically exist, no? Answer: no. This is because you, your children and grandchildren must still earn it. The fund will be paid from the tax deductions from your future income. Capice? Your leaders are at the moment stealing a part of your future income. It is called confidence tricking, chicanery, fraud, embezzlement, rackteering, etc, but as long as you believe all is OK and the MSM parrots the success of their masters, nothing will change.

You, the tax payer, are now on the line for additional taxes as you will be the one who has to pay for the mistakes of your political and financial leaders.

you can bet our leaders do not sleep well at night as they know they are in unchartered waters.

Again, as long as you believe all is OK, nothing will change.

You can however protect yourself as Gold will be going to to $2000 and silver to $100 shortly.

G20 inches toward $2 trillion in rescue funds

(Reuters) - Germany is easing its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, officials said, smoothing the way for the world's leading economies to secure nearly $2 trillion in firepower to prevent further fallout from the euro-zone's sovereign debt crisis.Finance leaders from the Group of 20, meeting in Mexico City this weekend, are trying to build up massive international resources by the end of April to convince financial markets they can prevent the euro-zone's deep problems from inflicting more damage on a still-fragile world recovery.It would mark their boldest efforts since 2008 when the G20 mustered $1 trillion to rescue the world economy from the credit crisis, which blew up in the United States and caused the worst recession since the 1930s.They are demanding that Europe build up its war chest first and then other G20 countries would contribute extra money to the International Monetary Fund. As Europe's richest economy, Germany's support for a larger European fund is critical.A senior G20 official said Berlin was prepared to discuss boosting the firewall in March, but it saw no reason to increase the bailout fund for now because the situation in financial markets has been improving.The plan is to merge Europe's temporary and permanent bailout funds, the European Financial Stability Fund and the European Stability Mechanism, to create one 750 billion-euro ($1 trillion) fund. Increased IMF resources would back that up."Everyone in the euro zone and even in European Union is reasonably happy with combining the ESM and the EFSF, even Germany, but it is too early to say if this will be decided at the EU summit at the beginning of March," said Margrethe Vestager, economy minister of current EU president Denmark.Merging the funds would mark a softening of Berlin's stance. It has warned that a bigger fund would remove pressure on deeply indebted countries to enact the tough fiscal measures and economic reforms needed to bring their budgets under control.G20 finance chiefs are piling the pressure on Germany as they try to line up the roughly $2 trillion in resources by the time they next meet in April and draw a line under the two-year-old euro-zone crisis."I do want to encourage Germany to take that leadership role very seriously and come up with an overall euro zone plan," said Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.Some diplomats have said Germany's reticence to back the bigger bailout plan was linked to a key vote on Monday by German lawmakers on Greece's new financial lifeline, another part of the broader push to ring-fence the euro zone crisis.Europe's problems have weakened the global recovery and roiled financial markets, which have locked highly indebted countries -- Greece, Ireland and Portugal -- out of debt markets and forced them to seek bailouts. Italy and Spain also are under threat, and bank credit has tightened.German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told bankers in Mexico City that he was worried that the root causes of Europe's problems have not been tackled sufficiently and showed no sign that he was ready to announce a shift in course on issues such as common euro zone bonds as well as bigger bailout funds."It does not make any economic sense to follow the calls for proposals which would be mutualizing the interest risk in the euro zone, nor in pumping money into rescue funds, nor in starting up the ECB printing press," Schaeuble said.BIG BAZOOKAA European agreement during March to merge the EFSF and the ESM to create a $1 trillion war chest would clear the way for other G20 countries in April to meet the IMF's request for $500-$600 billion in new resources, on top of its current $358 billion in funds.Put together, this would total around $1.95 trillion in firepower. But the G20 has no intention of easing the pressure on Europe by giving it a strong signal now that new IMF money is in the bag.A G20 communique at the end of the ministerial meetings on Sunday will merely state that the world's leading economies will review the resources of the IMF in April without setting a date for a deal, G20 officials said.Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said more funds are essential. "In order to overcome the crisis, you have to get ahead of the curve and have a big enough bazooka," he told reporters."The negotiations are now going on," Rehn said, adding he was confident that a decision to merge the European funds would be taken in March.A euro zone official said a deal is unlikely to come in time for a summit of European Union leaders next week which could nonetheless reveal some flexibility by Berlin: "What we can expect, at most, is a reference in the conclusions suggesting Germany is not closing the door."GERMANY NEEDS TIMEDiplomats said Germany appears to be playing for time. It faces a critical vote on Monday to win support in the German parliament for Greece's second rescue package. Many Bundestag members are skeptical that Greece can meet tough fiscal conditions required to bring its public debt down to 120 percent of GDP by 2020.Similar votes are scheduled in the Netherlands and Finland next week. Germany also wants to see whether enough investors sign up for Greece's debt swap, which Athens wants to complete by March 12, a euro zone official said."Most euro zone countries are ready to move now, but I am afraid that Germany will need more time to agree to the increase, mainly to be able to better manage the Bundestag," one euro zone official said.The United States has said it will not provide more funds for the IMF. But it is not standing in the way of other countries lending to the Fund and is keeping up the pressure on Europe to put forward first more of its own money."I hope that we're going to see, and I expect we will see continued efforts by the Europeans ... to put in place a stronger, more credible firewall," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Saturday.Policymakers said they were hopeful that putting in place a strong firewall against further crises in Europe would help strengthen the world economy."The economy is somewhat picking up in the world as a whole including Japan and (we) want to put an end to the Europe crisis in the early spring and to accelerate the global economic growth," Japan's Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

In "Atlas Shrugged", Ayn Rand described a dystopian United States, where the answer to every perceived flaw and inequity in society was government regulation.

When this regulation created more problems, the answer was ever more government intervention in society. Eventually, most of the population was either working for the government or responding to government edicts – few were actually producing anything. These few (represented by Mr Galt), shackled by the many, quit and the world stopped. Sounds familiar?

The current financial crisis has its roots in interventionist government action:

laws to promote home ownership for the poor (where the sub-prime loans came from);

on executive pay (leading to bonuses as a loophole);

anti-monopoly laws (preventing failing banks from being taken over by competitors);

the prospect of government bail-outs (discouraging firms from accepting less attractive offers from market sources);

government guarantees (encouraging people to accept the highest deposit rates, regardless of risk);

and half the economy existing in the non-productive state sector (tying down the productive sector).

As Ronald Reagan put it, government is not a solution to our problems, government is the problem. The interventions by governments around the world have achieved nothing but harm and the accumulation of debt by the Governments will shackle economies for years to come. Moreover, the clarion calls for even further regulation will lead to unintended consequences, exacerbating the harm.

We are suffering from government failure, not market failure. The world hasn't stopped, but it has been slowed by government.

It is time the lessons from Atlas Shrugged were heeded and John Galt set free.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Our thinking has been shaped by 40 years relentless propaganda of the financial media. Time to step back and pull back the curtains.It is a confidence game.."trust" is the word. The less you know..the better for them. A strong Dollar policy can't only come from the Dollar! A weak gold price is also more than welcome. So why not help gold weakness a bit by leasing, swapping or selling gold over a hundred times in the market...on paper of course....in the meantime claiming that the US Dollar is "as good as gold". Read the explanation of the thinking of the monetary underbelly below. What will follow is "hot fury" as finally the people will realise that The Emperor has no clothes...that it is all a BS story...that pensions and savings just do not exists. This is exactly the reason why big companies and financial institutions are not allowed to go bankrupt. To keep the music going....just for a little while. I bet Obama goes on his knees every night and asks The Good Lord to please let the economy grow with 10% soon as only with positive growth figures they can re-start the economy - borrow from our grand children...and cover-up a criminal financial system with the words: -you see, you can trust us, we have nothing to hide-.

Auditing The Fed's Gold

(Goldseek) I have posted a video of something I thought I would never see: all five of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate verbally demanding an audit of the Federal Reserve System. You can see it here.

Bernanke is facing what no Federal Reserve chairman has ever faced: public awareness of the Federal Reserve System. From late December 1913, when an almost deserted Senate voted for the Federal Reserve Act, until 2008, when the recession confirmed Ron Paul's warning in late 2007, there was almost no public awareness or even a vague understanding of the Federal Reserve System. The genie is now out of the bottle, where it had been corked since 1913. Ron Paul has uncorked it.

From the November 1910 secret meeting at Georgia's Jekyll Island until Ron Paul's 2007 candidacy for the Republican nomination for President, The Federal Reserve had received a free ride from Congress. There had never been much oversight. That's because FED regulation was an oversight. (The same word is used to convey opposite meanings.)

The Texas Leftist-populist Democrat Wright Patman had been a critic. He had been the chairman of the House Banking Committee until 1975, a year before Paul arrived in Congress. He was a Greenbacker: a believer in a zero-interest economy that achieves this Utopian goal through the use of fiat paper money. Patman was not able to generate much interest in the FED.

Patman did inflict one major wound on the FED. He and California Congressman Jerry Voorhis, another Greenbacker, in the early 1940s persuaded Congress to pass a bill, which Roosevelt signed, that forbids the Federal Reserve from keeping the interest payments from the government bonds it has counterfeited fiat money to purchase. Today, the FED must return to the Treasury all of this money beyond its operating expenses. For 2011, the FED will pay back $77 billion.

A full-scale audit of the FED, if it ever comes, must include an audit of the gold every year. The auditors must see if the gold is in the two vaults. The first vault, at Ft. Knox, is more famous. The more important vault is located at 33 Liberty Street, New York City: the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This is the "Die Hard III" vault.

The auditors must do two things. First, they must determine whether there is the same amount of gold as is listed on the FED's books at the fake price of $42.22 per ounce. Second, the auditors must follow the paper trail of ownership. They must make sure that the gold in the vaults is still legally in the possession of the FED.

There is a possibility that the FED has transferred ownership of this gold, through swaps, to European central banks, which have in turn leased – sold – their gold to private buyers. It is not enough to determine that the physical gold is in the two vaults. It is also mandatory to determine whether the FED has indirectly sold the government's gold, which it has held in trust for the government since 1933.

[Note to auditors: pursue this phrase in the FED's statements: "deep storage gold." As to why, read this.]

BERNANKE VS. A FULL-SCALE GOVERNMENT AUDIT

Every FED chairman has resisted any attempt by the Congress to mandate an independent audit of the FED by the General Accountability Office of the U.S. government. Bernanke was adamantly opposed in 2009. He of course did not mention what I regard as the main reason for his opposition to an audit: the missing gold. For all FED chairman, gold is a four-letter word. He mentioned only monetary policy, as if Congress has no authority over monetary policy, despite that ancient "barbarous relic," the U.S. Constitution.

The Congress has recently discussed proposals to expand the audit authority of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the Federal Reserve. As you know, the Federal Reserve is already subject to frequent reviews by the GAO. The GAO has broad authority to audit our operations and functions.

This of course was deceptive. First, the FED is audited by a rotating group of private auditing firms, which are appointed by the Office of Inspector General. This rotation system makes long-term accounting continuity far more difficult to achieve. The FED forbids the auditing firm to inspect all of the FED's operations. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,

Operations at each Federal Reserve Bank also are subject to review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the audit arm of the U.S. Congress. However, GAO auditors are restricted by law from reviewing monetary policy operations and transactions carried out by the Federal Reserve on behalf of foreign central banks. This restriction was imposed by Congress to assure the independence of the Federal Reserve from political influence.

"Political influence." There is another term for "political influence." That term is "the United States government."

The FED defends this principle: "Monetary policy is far too important to be audited by the government." After all, what claim to such authority does the government have, other than the fact that it created the Federal Reserve System?

Second, a full-scale audit would require Congress to abandon the limitation on its own authority which the banking industry persuaded Congress to impose on itself. This is why Bernanke opposes an audit. He added this in 2009.

The Congress recently granted the GAO new authority to conduct audits of the credit facilities extended by the Federal Reserve to "single and specific" companies under the authority provided by section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, including the loan facilities provided to, or created for, American International Group and Bear Stearns. The GAO and the Special Inspector General have the right to audit our TALF program, which uses funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

The Congress, however, purposefully – and for good reason – excluded from the scope of potential GAO reviews some highly sensitive areas, notably monetary policy deliberations and operations, including open market and discount window operations. In doing so, the Congress carefully balanced the need for public accountability with the strong public policy benefits that flow from maintaining an appropriate degree of independence for the central bank in the making and execution of monetary policy.

The phrase "balanced the need" is a code phrase for "abdicated Congressional authority."

Financial markets, in particular, likely would see a grant of review authority in these areas to the GAO as a serious weakening of monetary policy independence. Because GAO reviews may be initiated at the request of members of Congress, reviews or the threat of reviews in these areas could be seen as efforts to try to influence monetary policy decisions. A perceived loss of monetary policy independence could raise fears about future inflation, leading to higher long-term interest rates and reduced economic and financial stability. We will continue to work with the Congress to provide the information it needs to oversee our activities effectively, yet in a way that does not compromise monetary policy independence.

But now the twits are facing signs of a political rebellion. Millions of voters have figured out that the FED is a scam that is run for the benefit of the largest commercial banks, including foreign central banks. Ron Paul represents this view. A new generation of candidates for Congress is finding that there is no broad constituency in the electorate that comes to the defense of the FED. Most voters still don't have any opinion, but among those who do, the opinion is negative.

The FED has relied on secrecy and obscurity to protect it from criticism for almost a century. That strategy worked until 2008. But Ron Paul was like the little boy at the emperor's parade. "The emperor has no clothes!"

The emperor is Bernanke, a bland academic who surely could use a charisma implant.

This attack is a major break from the past. William McChesney Martin lasted for over 18 years, from Truman to Nixon. He was unassailable. Arthur Burns followed. He smoked a pipe at Congress, and seemed so wise. G. William Miller was a monetary neophyte, but he only lasted 18 months. Carter somehow persuaded him to resign to become Secretary of the Treasury, where he could do no more damage. Then came Paul Volcker, 6 feet 8 and a cigar smoker. He overpowered any critics. Then came Greenspan, the seeming wizard, whose FedSpeak befuddled Congress, and whose policy of inflate and inflate, obfuscate and obfuscate, and warn about inflation worked just fine for 18 years. He departed just in time.

Then came the hapless Bernanke, George W. Bush's gift to the world in 2006. Obama re-appointed him in 2009.He will serve until February 1, 2014. This is good for FED-bashers. He will go down in history as the footnoting scholar who was in charge when the tide of public opinion went from "What's the FED?" to "audit the FED!"

DOUBLE-COUNTING THE GOLD

If the FED is fully audited, it is likely that the audit will reveal that the gold is encumbered. Foreign central banks have leased their gold. This is a phrase for "sold the gold," since the people who borrowed it at 1% per annum then sold it for money and bought government bonds paying 5% or more. They cannot sell these bonds at face value; the bonds have fallen in value. They cannot afford to buy gold in the open market to return the gold to the central banks. The price is already far above what they sold it for.

The central banks dare not demand a return of this gold. The gold is still on their books. The IOUs they received from the borrowers are counted as being as good as gold. The voters do not know that the gold is missing.

In December 2004, an obscure committee with the International Monetary Fund submitted a report on swaps and gold leasing. With respect to accounting for gold leasing, the report admitted that there are no standards. "The statistical implications of gold swaps and gold loans/ deposits are complex and have not been fully worked through. Work is still being undertaken by the Committee to address the implications." What implications? One of them is the issue of double counting.

In particular, gold may be double counted with either a gold swap or gold loan/deposit if the party acquiring the gold were to on-sell it outright, because both the original owner and the outright purchaser would report ownership of the gold. In addition, there is the difficulty of having monetary gold being used in these transactions for purposes other than for reserve assets, and how (de)monetization would apply if the gold is sold for industrial purposes. Moreover, there is a proposal to treat (some) nonmonetary gold as a financial asset, rather than a commodity, and the outcome of that discussion may have further implications on the treatment of gold swaps and gold loans/deposits. Finally, how the "fee" for gold swaps and gold loans/deposits should be treated has yet to be resolved. All these matters are being considered by the Committee and a report will be taken to the AEG in due course.

Nothing has changed.

The Federal Reserve has always denied that it has leased the gold, meaning the government's gold. But the FED is involved in all kinds of swaps with foreign central banks. And remember, quoting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,

. . . GAO auditors are restricted by law from reviewing monetary policy operations and transactions carried out by the Federal Reserve on behalf of foreign central banks.

Consider the political fallout if it should be revealed that the physical gold in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has claims against it. What if it should turn out that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is a privately owned organization, has in some way compromised the government's ownership of its gold?

What kind of pressure would be brought on the assembly of twits by the voters to "get our gold back"? What kind of response from the twits would be likely?

Bernanke would dutifully go to Congress to present his footnotes showing that this was good for the world economy. He would find a warm reception: hot fury.

He really does think that providing footnotes will protect him. This is what he learned in academia. But politicians pay no attention to footnotes.

Bernanke's credibility is nothing like the credibility possessed by all FED chairman except Miller, who is long forgotten. He has been able to fend off calls to audit the FED for four years. But Ron Paul is now a serious contender for the Republican nomination. He keeps returning to one theme above all others: the incompetence of the Federal Reserve. No serious Presidential candidate in history so much as mentioned the Federal Reserve in his campaign speeches.

The media keep brushing off Paul because of this. They keep saying that this issue has no traction with normal voters. But the issue has traction with at least 20% of the voters in the Republican primaries so far. That is more voters than the bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve have ever encountered. They have no idea what to do about this.

CONCLUSION

Paul's candidacy will continue for months. He will continue to hammer on this theme: the Federal Reserve is incompetent. This message will stick, whether or not he gets the nomination. His supporters are like Bruce Willis: die hards.

The Federal Reserve will never again be able to hide from the voters behind a curtain of secrecy. Bernanke is the Wizard of Oz, and Ron Paul is Toto. He has pulled back the curtain. From this time on, whenever you read a report on his testimony before Congress, think of this scene.

The main difference between this scene and a Bernanke speech is footnotes.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Bullion Management Group Inc. (BMG) President and CEO Nick Barisheff presents the case for $10,000 gold and how the world’s developing currency crises will affect the gold price in 2012 and beyond at the Empire Club of Canada's Investment Outlook for 2012 on January 5th,

His speech has gained significant amounts of global media coverage and has been very favourably received by the investment community, so please make sure you take this chance to view the 13 minute speech in its entirety.

Barisheff also takes the opportunity to announce the exciting launch of his much anticipated book, ‘$10,000 Gold: The inevitable rise and investors’ safe haven'. Ahead of the book's release later this year, The Author’s Preface is available for download now at www.10000goldthebook.com .

BMG is confident financial advisors, institutional investors, pension funds and individuals alike, on a global basis, will benefit from Nick Barisheff’s expert insight and will find both the speech and the book extremely valuable tools for preserving wealth in these difficult times.

You can also read the speech online at: www.bmgbullion.com/outlook2012.